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Wednesday, 13 February 2013

JOHN D. MACDONALD - THE DEEP BLUE GOODBYE (1964)

TRAVIS McGEE
He's a self-described beach bum who won his houseboat in a card game. He's also
a knight errant who's wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political
parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out and
his rule is simple: he'll help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as
he can keep half....

I owned
this book years ago, when I first got into crime fiction in the early 90’s. I
discarded it, un-read a couple of years later on the basis that it looked old,
it was old - therefore it must be rubbish.Fast forward 20 years and my outlook has somewhat changed.I’m old myself now; 50 this year and still
older than the book, which by definition cannot now be dismissed automatically as
rubbish on grounds of age alone. I was encouraged to give it a chance to by a
friend I’ve made on the Goodreads site - Cathy from Florida.

So a
big hat tip to Cathy then, as the book was extremely enjoyable. McDonald’s
creation, Travis McGee is the star of the show in this his first outing. Travis
is a “salvage” expert. He specialises in recovering people’s property for a
50/50 split of the spoils, but only when he needs the money. The rest of the
time he enjoys a life of leisure on his boat in sunny Florida.

McGee
agrees to help Cathy recover her mystery inheritance that’s been swindled from
her by Junior Allen, a smooth talking, rapist ex-con. McGee’s investigation
sees him delving into Cathy’s father’s past and his wartime exploits as well as
more recent events with Junior’s involvement with another local lady. Fast
forward a bit.......... McGee eventually catches up with Allen and attempts to
reclaim Cathy’s gem stones as well as making Allen pay for his exploits.

MacDonald
portrays McGee as a part-time sage-cum-philosopher as well as a man of action
when the need arises. He’s a loner with a heart, albeit a chauvinistic one, and
whilst that may be irritating and a turn off for some readers, I actually liked
him and want to read more about him.

The
Deep Blue Goodbye was MacDonald’s first Travis book in a series that ran for 20
years and a further 20 books. I won’t bite off more than I can chew, but I’ve already
line up the second in the series for reading next month sometime – Nightmare In
Pink.

4
from 5

I managed
to obtain a second-hand copy of this by agreeing to swap another of my books on
the useful ReadItSwapIt website.

T.M. Logan 's 29 Seconds was looked at on the blog yesterday - here . Today the author kindly answers a few que...

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10 behind my wife............she's getting away from me! 4 behind my son! I reckon I can reel her back in during the second half of the year!Not always my cup of tea - but I like reading what my better half has read, I find it promotes some learned discourse over the dinner table!